Designer in the Making By: Sarah Marsho Introduction to Design Fall 2015
When I first signed up for this class, I was honestly terrified. My concern was the technology portion of the class, and it was my first art class of college. Art wasn’t something I liked until my sophomore year of high school. The content and grading were much simpler, so I was nervous about how the college level would challenge me. I’m so glad that I stuck with this class because I learned so much from it, and decided to be a Graphic Design major! This Process Book shows the journey of my first art class. It shows how I completed every project, and the good, bad, and ugly of each piece.
Table of Contents ~Design and Vocation Questions~ ~Dot/Line Project~ ~Expressive Text Project~ ~Object Iterations Project~ ~Designer Project~ ~Children’s Book Project~
This book was created in the Fall of 2015 as a part of the Introduction to Design class at St. Norbert College. It was written by Sarah Marsho and is typeset in DIN Alternate Bold, Apple Chancery, and Abadi MT Condensed Extra Bold. The Images were hand drawn and made by Sarah Marsho, scanned, and digitally edited. It was printed at the University Print Center.
Design and Vocation Are you called to creative work? If so, how do you recognize that calling? If not, to what do you feel called? I believe I am called to creative work. I guess I can recognize that calling because very career I have wanted since childhood (actress, author, and now designer) has always been really creative. Creativity and imagination have also just always come easily to me. It was never a struggle to play make-believe, whether it was house, Barbies, Polly Pockets, or American Girl, there was always an intricate plot, wonderful fashion, and the game lasted for hours! And even now it isn’t usually a struggle to come up with an idea for something for a project or presentation. What, if anything, distinguishes art and design? If you have to pick a side, which do you choose? Why? Art and design are definitely distinguishable. Art can be more free, and I think it is more therapeutic, whereas design has more boundaries, and instead of impressing yourself, the designer has to impress both his or herself and the client. Design also normally displays some form of meaning that the viewer is supposed to understand or recognize, like a logo or billboard. What is the difference between a good life and a significant life? The difference between a good life and a significant life is that a good life can be lived by anyone. Almost anything can be considered “good” under the right circumstances. Significance is a much less vague term. Have you changed anyone life? Even just one? Possibly without even knowing it? Then, you have lived a significant life. If one lives life to its fullest potential and does what one loves and is called to do, then he or she has lived a significant life. Significance often has to do with quality, and not quantity. If someone dies at an old age, the mourners often say “he lived a good life.” In this case, good means long. I find that the youngest deaths are the most significant. They are the ones that have entire states mourning. There’s a saying “only the good die young,” perhaps, the significant die young.
What is the greatest failure you’ve experienced (that you feel comfortable sharing with our class)? The greatest failure that I’ve experienced was probably last summer. I applied for around 20 different summer jobs, got one interview, and ultimately went back to the babysitting job I had the summer before that I hated. I felt like a total failure; only working three days a week, part time, while my friends were working full time jobs and getting paychecks, whereas I was just handed cash if there were two living kids there when the parents got home. Hopefully this summer I’ll be able to get a full time job. What’s something you’ve made in the last two years that you’re proud of? I am most proud of making a beautiful poster after a favorite painting by my favorite artist. I recreated Frozen Stream by Leonid Afremov and it looks pretty good. My mom really liked it so she framed it and hung it by the grandfather clock in our house. If you were guaranteed it would support you financially, what would you want to design or make for a living? If it was certain I could make a living, I would love to illustrate children’s books and write fantasy novels. I’ve had a love for telling a good story, and doing that through pictures is just as amazing aw words. But with fantasy, I like giving the viewer a chance to create their own image, which is why my writing is very descriptive. My art and design is more simple, mostly because too complex of pieces wouldn’t be very easy to interpret for children.
Dot
Line
Project
Objectives: -To create strong abstract pieces using simple elements -To build a foundation of using many iterations to narrow down and become successful -To demonstrate an understanding of value, scale, line, and visual hierarchy -To practice perfect craft
These are the first thumbnails I drew for this project. I drew five for each word that I was going to illustrate.
During this project I learned how much time it takes to make beautiful work. I would walk into the studio to work on this project thinking I could get all four done in an hour. Then I would realize it took close to an hour to complete one beautiful work of art. More importanly, however, I learned how to let myself be abstract. Until this project, I hadn’t really thought much about abstract art, and thought there wasn’t much to it. While working on this project it was challenging to be abstract, esoecially given that we could only use black, grey and white paper, and use only dots and lines. However, after completeing this project, I realized just how much makes abstract art work, and that it is much harder than it seems. If I were to do this project again, I would have timed myself so I didn’t think as much about the word, and instead drew the first things that came to my mind, no matter what.
Above are my sketches for a second draft of each original piece. First Chaos, then Scarcity, Joy, and finally Rejection.
These are the final drafts of my four words. The image on the right is after digital editing.
Chaos
Scarcity
Joy
Rejection
Expressive Text Project Objectives: -To experiment with hand lettering -To think about how the typography impacts the word -To make many iterations to come to success -To make neat iterations
Directly below is the mind map that I drew out for the word “echo.”
The two images below and the image at the bottom left are sketches of three of my four final iterations for the word “echo.”
During this project I learned how to illustrate words using letters. When I recieved the Expressive Text assignment brief I was shocked that we would be using letters to illustrate words. I was also shocked that there was so much behind every piece of type. While working on this project I really challenged with excellent craft: my work was often smudged or messy. I really struggled using charcoal, and ended up with a few smudges and smears in my final pieces. I was surprised how easy it was for me to come up with ways to illustrate the words using ideas of what they relate too. Like “echo” often makes people think of caves, mountains, and repitition, so I ran with those ideas. Using a mind map really helped me with this project, If I were to do this project again I would be more careful with my use of charcoal to make it not as messy and smudgy. I learned some tactics that would help keep my hands and arms off the paper as I draw, and I would use those to help me.
These three images are sketches for one of my four final iterations for the word “echo.”
These are the final four illustrations for my word “echo.� The image to the right is after digital editting.
Object
Iteration
Project
Objectives: -To experiment with variety of media -To experiment and show range, creativity, and curiosity - To create recognizable and unexpected depictions of the subject - To use the process of making as a way to discover and understand -To challenge yourself -To work with and past clichĂŠs -To modify work to fit within parameters
Below are the contour images that I drew to practice for my Elephant Iterations poster.
During this project I learned how to illustrate the silhouette and idea of an elephant. I learned how to properly lay things out on a poster, and use photoshop, which is something I was very concerned about at the beginning of the semester. While working on this project I really went out of my comfort zone and experimented with a lot of different media. I had never done many collages, or worked with spray paint before. It was challenging to work with spray paint, especially because making stencils neat enough to create a sharp edge was seemingly impossible. My greatest success with this project was learning how to use photoshop to properly edit my iterations and lay them out on a poster. If I were to do this project again I would have spent more time on the spray paint iteration. I would have tried different materials to make a stencil, and try standing the picture up as I spray paint it.
These are some more contour images that I drew to practice for my Elephant Iterations poster.
Below are the images I used in my final poster before they were digitally edited.
Below is my final poster of my elephant iterations.
Designer
Project
Objectives: -To research and share your findings -To learn to evaluate the reliability of sources -To gain experience presenting information -To place the work of a contemporary artist in an art historical context -To practice presenting
Below are images of Deborah Sussman
During this project I learned that practice makes perfect. I had more practice with finding reliable sources, and finding images and information that would be interesting and informative. While working on this project I didn’t put much thought into my presentation or the designer I was researching. But as I found more information, I realized what a totally amazing and inspirational person she was. She created work so huge and monumental that she started the trend of more public art that people can see when and whereever they want. If I were to do this project again I would have practiced more with my transitions from image to image. Some were rusty, and the transition was rushed, didn’t make much snese, or simply wasn’t there at all.
These are example images from Deborah Sussman’s architectural design for the 1984 Olympics, for which she is most famous.
Children’s Book Project Objectives: -To gain expeirence doing collaborative work with clients -To create understandable and beautiful images based on the content of the writing and direction of the client -To typeset the story in a way that makes sense to the story and its images -To produce a printed booklet of your childrens book
Below are scans of my thumbnails for the first six pages of my childrens book illustrations.
This project was definitely one of my favorites! I conquered my fear of the technological part of the graphic design world. During this project I learned how to make a book! I learned how to use indesign to create a layout and insert text boxes. I also learned how to enhance the color of my drawings. For this project I drew the scenes with a thin sharpie and soft pastels and scanned it into the computer, then I digitally edited them. I struggled at first getting the text to be legible, but once I outlined it, it was much better! I also learned how to edit images more quickly and effectively. If I were to do this project again I would have expereimented with different materials. Maybe I would have done all of my illustrations completely digitally, maybe not. But I would like to give that a try.
The images above and to the right are my illustrations for two of the pages. The image on the right is after being digitally edited.
The images on these next pages are my illustrations for two of the pages. The image on the right is after being digitally edited.